Organize-Declutter-Minimize

Will it make a difference if I organize or declutter or minimize something around my house? Will the end of my effort be worth it? Sometimes I don't even think about organizing until it does happen. Then BAG!  And then you start organizing something you hadn't plan to do at the moment.  Perhaps you find something that was left to be classified but you didn't. Should you deal with the undone task or run in the other direction and forget all about it.

Organize

But where do you start something that is definitely time-consuming?  When I decided to remove a small dresser from my basement and replaced it with a small 6 unit shelving for my art supplies and books.  First I had to empty the dresser of all the miscellaneous supplies so I could store the dresser in my shed. After that, I emptied the unit of all the old photo albums and boxes which we have accumulated in the last 30 years. That's when the 'BAG' happened. I needed to rid of some old photos and I shredded hundred of blurred photos, some were doubled ones, other not so significant. I rather quilt then go through this, I thought, but once I started it, I was on a roll. My husband helped me too.

Declutter

 Another thing I dealt with is the surplus of batting growing in my crawl space. Batting tends to be bukly and does take room. If I can use it on a project, then it's not laying in one of my bin.  I pulled all the pieces out and was surprised how much I had.

1.  First I organized the batting by type even if they were all cottong. Some batting cotton are different in thickness and softeness.

 2. I sorted the long pieces, square ones and smaller pieces in piles.

 3.  Then I trimmed them to equal size and they could be used for practicing my free-motion quilting.

4. I zig-zagged the longer strips together and had enough for a small quilt top.

Minimize 

 As I'm going through this mindset why not extend this to other areas like my old patterns. Why am I keeping all this if I'm not using it or will never use it or look at it ever again? It just takes space that I don't have.

The binder holds patterns that I've used once and will never do them again and I've copied pages from a magazine for inspiration. Those are left in binders and I'm not interested in half of them now. So why keeping it? I wonder:0 

The file organizer boxes I have purchased are of good use this time and I've decided to store my patterns in them instead of old binders.

That's all was left from 4 binders and many old tangs. Those old magazines will eventually go too.  As I'm getting older, I tend to of unessary stuffs that filled space. Yes, it was time-consuming, but I had fun going through the family photos.

Now it's time to go quilt